


stranger things

by andnowforyaya



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Domestic, Gen, M/M, Werewolves, Wolf Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yongguk is the alpha of his little pack and doesn't really like the idea of adopting the kitten Junhong found in the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Yongguk returns from a long, busy, tiresome day of work at the law firm to discover a new scent in his house he doesn’t recognize at first. It is not necessarily a threatening scent, he thinks, as he shrugs out of his trench, shaking it out a bit to remove excess water that collected on its surface from the storm raging outside before hanging the coat up on the hooks by the door. He steps out of his leather shoes, putting them neatly in place beside a couple of other pairs of shoes: sneakers, canvas shoes, running shoes, and boots, all in various sizes. That means everyone is home, and since his nose isn’t picking up anything else alarming -- like blood, for example -- he reasons that this new scent must belong to something of little significance.

It’s odd that no one is here to greet him. His betas can hear him coming from a mile away.

“Himchan?” he calls out into the echoing space of his home. He’s done well for himself, really. It was lucky that just as the pack started to grow, he was promoted _and_ he discovered his grandfather had left him a large sum of money in his will. The house he bought sits a little over a half-hour's drive away from the center of Seoul, south of the river. It’s not exactly isolated but the families in this small neighborhood keep to themselves, and it’s easy enough to hop in his car and drive off into a more rural area if the pack needs to let off some energy.

A door opens and the unfamiliar smell gets stronger. Yongguk can almost place it. Himchan’s body comes into view over the railing of the exposed second floor landing above the living room. The house is large enough that Yongguk gets his own bedroom while his betas pair off, sometimes switching rooms and partners on a whim: Himchan with Jongup and Youngjae with Junhong, or any combination therein.

“Yes, boss?” Himchan says. He’s smirking, but Yongguk can detect a tiny trace of uncertainty in the way his shoulders are tight near his ears.

“I told you not to call me that,” Yongguk returns, smiling.

“I can’t follow _all_ your orders,” Himchan says. He rolls his eyes, but the action seems forced. He hovers, stalling. His eyes dart back to glance at the room out of which he emerged. Youngjae and Junhong’s.

Yongguk frowns, starting his way up the stairs. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” Himchan says immediately. Yongguk makes it to the second landing, and then he steps forward into Himchan’s space, annoyed at the lie. Himchan ducks his eyes and swallows. “Okay, there’s something. He’s already attached to it,” Himchan rambles as Yongguk walks past him to the door of Youngjae and Junhong’s room, nudging it open. “Good luck convincing him it’s a bad idea. It’s quite cute, anyway, you know? And we can’t just--”

“Can we keep him!” Junhong’s panicked voice suddenly cuts through Himchan’s nervous chatter. “Please! Please please please _please_.”

Junhong is sitting on the bed, long legs criss-crossed and arms holding a small bundle of towels and blankets. Youngjae is draped over his back; he’d been making faces down at whatever Junhong was holding before Yongguk came in, and now he is staring, eyes wide, as Junhong continues to implore Yongguk. Jongup is sitting on the desk holding and squeezing a stress ball.

“Please,” Junhong says again. “I know the rule -- no pets -- but I couldn’t leave him out there in the storm--”

As if to accentuate his point, thunder rumbles in the clouds, heavy and loud enough that the windows shake. The bundle of blankets in Junhong’s arms moves and emits a squeak of a mewl.

“What have you got there, Junhong?” Yongguk asks, his voice laced with a command.

Junhong shuts his mouth and folds down the blankets a bit to show him.

It’s a cat. A kitten, really. A tiny ball of tawny fur darkened by water and shivering, eyes squeezed shut.

Rain pelts the glass of the windows and Yongguk walks forward. He’s aware of everyone’s eyes on him as he kneels by the bed and places a large hand over the kitten’s head. Junhong almost pulls away, out of Yongguk’s reach, but stills with a glance from his alpha.

“It’s weak,” Yongguk says, petting the kitten gently and feeling bones under the fur. “Junhong, you don’t know how to take care of--”

“I can take care of him,” Junhong insists. “Youngjae-hyung said he would help me, too. When I came home from school I found him, and I brought him home, and I bathed him in the sink and held his head above the water, and -- Yongguk-hyung, please, can we help him?”

Junhong, out of all of them, has had the hardest time adjusting to pack life. He joined last, young and new and scared, abandoned by the wolf who had bitten him and running from hunters, and he clung to Youngjae the moment they were introduced. Yongguk doesn’t want them to keep the kitten, because the kitten is going to die. He sighs.

Himchan taps him on the shoulder and Yongguk looks back at him at he inclines his head for them to go back out into the hallway to talk.

Against the railing again, Himchan says in a low whisper, “Let him keep the cat, Yongguk. He’s already named the thing.”

“And deal with the consequences when it dies? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know that it’s going to die. It’s just weak. And, it’d be good to give him some responsibility, you know?” Himchan argues.

Yongguk feels his lips pressing into a tight line. He doesn’t like for his rules to be broken, but even he has to admit the ‘no pets’ rule applied more to when they had all come together in their first house, still feeling each other out and prone to fighting -- sometimes as humans, sometimes as wolves.

He goes back into the room and reads the guarded anticipation on Youngjae’s face. Though he hadn’t voiced it, Yongguk can tell Youngjae wants to keep the kitten, too.

“Fine,” Yongguk announces, but holds up a hand when Junhong opens his mouth automatically to cheer. No sound comes out, and his face closes up, waiting for the conditions. “Fine, but this is _your_ kitten, Junhong. You’re taking responsibility for it, got it?”

“And me,” Youngjae says, raising his hand like he’s in class.

“What?”

“And me, too,” Youngjae repeats. “I said I would help him.”

“Right,” Yongguk says. “Okay, fine.”

When he steps out of the room again, they keep the door open and he can sense the way the energy inside those walls changes. Junhong cheers, finally, and Youngjae laughs. Himchan says, “I told you he wouldn’t be able to resist.”

As he enters his bedroom to start stripping out of his professional attire, shedding the worries and deadlines from his office along with the clothing, he allows himself to smile.

.


	2. Chapter 2

Miraculously, the kitten makes it through the night. Himchan shares this news in the morning with Yongguk over two bowls of cereal before the others wake up. Apparently Junhong fell asleep much later than usual, trying to figure out a way to get his new pet to stay hydrated, and then kept waking up throughout the night to check on him.

“Where’s it sleeping?” Yongguk asks between bites, scrolling through the headlines for today on his phone. In his position, it’s important to keep updated on current events, but he’s also always on the look out for strange patterns of missing people or unsolved killings. It’s a grim part of his day but necessary if he wants to keep his pack safe and out of the way of potential threats.

This morning, there’s nothing out of the ordinary.

“Junhong made a little bed in an old shoebox,” Himchan says. “The kid’s pretty creative, you know? When he realized the kitten wouldn’t be able to drink anything regularly he soaked a corner of a towel for it to suck on.”

Yongguk takes another bite of cereal, the crunching drowning out the sounds of the others beginning to wake. He hears Youngjae grumbling as he gets out of bed and stubs his toe on the door of his and Junhong’s shared bathroom.

“But what will it eat?” he asks next, putting his phone down.

Himchan’s eyebrows dip quickly as his lips curl up at the corners, and for some reason Yongguk feels like he’s just been caught in a trap.

“Oh? Didn’t you say it would be only Junhong and Youngjae’s responsibility? Is the alpha reneging on his words?” Himchan smirks, chewing on his cereal triumphantly.

But Yongguk doesn’t give into his teasing. He says, “It needs to eat. Or it will--”

“Jeez, you’re such a downer sometimes,” Himchan says quickly. Youngjae has stepped out of the shower and both Youngjae and Junhong emerge from their room. Jongup does, too, a moment later, rubbing at his eyes and dragging his feet. Yongguk doesn’t finish his sentence, grunting instead and going back to his cereal.

Everyone takes their seats around the small table, each with various quick breakfasts in front of them. Jongup has a bowl of cereal, too, while Junhong munches on two pieces of whitebread and Youngjae on a meat-filled bun they got from the bakery the other day. Junhong keeps looking down under the table, where Yongguk saw him place the shoebox he carried out from his room.

“How is it?” Yongguk asks, unable to help himself.

“His name is Kit,” Junhong announces. “And he’s okay, I think.” He frowns.

“You named your kitten...Kit?” Yongguk asks.

“It’s a good name!” Junhong protests immediately. “I like it. And Kit likes it.”

Jongup says, “And it’s short for kitten.”

Yongguk can never tell when that boy is being serious or sarcastic. He clears his throat as Himchan turns shining eyes to him, lifted at the corners to keep from laughing. “Okay, so what’s the plan today for Kit?”

“Well,” Junhong says, peering down again to check on the kitten. “I don’t think he should be alone in the house, so Youngjae said he could bring Kit to school with him; he says the university probably won’t mind as much as my high school would mind.”

“I’m going to stop by the pet store first,” Youngjae says around a bite of his bun. “To pick up some soft food and stuff. Oh, but then I’ll have to carry everything around campus…” He looks down at the table, forlorn.

“What do you have to get?” Yongguk asks.

“Food,” Youngjae lists. “Litter, a litter box, some toys probably, nutritional supplements? Maybe some other stuff…”

But Yongguk is shaking his head. The more he listens, the less he likes the idea of it. “You can’t bring a cat in a shoebox around with you all day,” Yongguk tells Youngjae. “Adorable as he is.”

“Ha!” Himchan barks suddenly. “So you admit you think Kit’s adorable.”

Yongguk ignores him.

“I’ll bring him with me. _Just for today_. I have some time before I need to be in the office, so I can stop by Hyosung and then the store to pick up whatever he needs, and I can keep him in my office, too. It’s not like he’s going to be wandering around or anything. So it should be fine.”

Junhong is looking at him with his mouth slightly open, face blank. Yongguk looks back, stern.

“You mean you’ll take care of him today? Oh, but I thought -- I mean -- responsibility, and --”

But the truth is: they hadn’t even thought to bring Kit to Hyosung for a quick check up. Hyosung is a vet in the lower part of Seoul who is a friendly to their kind. Yongguk owes her a lot, but she never seems to collect.

The betas’ hearts are in the right places, but they’re young yet, and don’t always think about where and when they can ask for help. Yongguk says, “Just for today, so we can all make sure we have everything in place to help Kit become healthy again. He’s vulnerable right now.”

Junhong flushes, embarrassed, and Youngjae ducks his head as well. “We thought we didn’t have enough money to bring him to Hyosung,” he admits.

“If you had asked me,” Yongguk says, “I would have given it to you. Consider this me giving it to you. Consider this me giving it to you in exchange for you completing your chores on time for the next two weeks.”

Himchan snickers into his hand and Jongup joins him. Junhong and Youngjae sink lower into their seats, ears red.

.

He enters Hyosung’s clinic through the back, even though it’s not for any sort of supernatural check-up. The clinic is clean but small. It’s before open hours but he’d called Hyosung on the drive into the city, and she’d agreed to look at Kit for him.

“I thought it was something serious!” Hyosung laughed over the phone.

“It _is_ serious,” Yongguk said, confused.

“Aw, okay. I’m sure we’ll be able to help Kit. From what you told me, it seems the biggest causes for concern are exposure and malnutrition. It’ll be okay.”

At the clinic, Hyosung gives Kit a shot that he barely reacts to and then prescribes force-feeding and hydrating through a plastic syringe, which she gives to Yongguk for free, and tells Yongguk what brand of supplemental milk formula to buy at the pet store. She also recommends blending up a gravy-based cat food to put into the syringe to feed him in little increments.

“His stomach will be sensitive right now,” she cautions, “so try little bits at a time, no more than this line.” She points to a line on the plastic syringe that is about two knuckles deep.

Yongguk nods, taking it all in.

“He’ll be fine,” Hyosung says again, smiling. “Don’t look so grumpy. You guys will take great care of him.”

“I don’t look grumpy,” Yongguk says defensively.

“Oh, Yongguk. You’re so easy to read,” the vet says.

.

The rest of his day is rather uneventful. He goes to the pet store and picks up everything he needs and stashes it all in the trunk of his car, keeping the shoebox where Kit is nestled in one of Junhong’s old t-shirts (“It’s a familiar smell!” Junhong said when Yongguk asked. “It’s comforting.”) and a fluffy towel in the front passenger seat. Kit twitches occasionally, or squeaks, or swats his own nose, but other than that he seems content to sleep. At the clinic, Hyosung had shown him how to use the syringe and fed him already, instructing Yongguk he should probably try to feed him every two to three hours.

At the office, he puts the shoebox in an empty spot in his bookshelf right by his desk and sets a reminder every two hours on his phone to feed him. Work goes on. The only incident that occurs is when one of the paralegals comes into his office without knocking, excitedly bringing in a stack of research that will support a pro bono case he’s working on, and Yongguk’s sitting behind his desk and he's got Kit in the crook of his elbow.

Kit is a tiny thing, small enough to fit in Yongguk’s broad palm, and lighter than a feather. As Yongguk pushes the tip of the plastic syringe into the kitten’s mouth, his little paws come up as though to try to push it away. Yongguk presses down on the plunger, though, and a bit of the formula milk trickles out, the taste of which Kit seems to like, since his paws come simply to rest around the barrel of the syringe.

“Oh,” the paralegal says, somewhere between disbelief and terror.

“What do you have for me?” Yongguk asks her.

The paralegal blushes, setting down the stack of reports on the corner of his desk. “Sojin’s deposition,” she says in a higher-pitched voice that normal. “She was very forthcoming. Oh, who’s this little guy? He’s so -- cute?”

“Thank you,” Yongguk says, aware now that he is also blushing. He was caught. “For your hard work. Please close the door on your way out.”

“Oh,” she says again. “Oh, of course. Right. You’re welcome.” She bows twice, hastily, before leaving his office and shutting the door behind her.

Yongguk looks down at Kit’s face, eyes still squeezed shut. The kitten paws at the barrel of the syringe, so Yongguk depresses the plunger a bit more, until all the formula milk is gone. He removes the syringe, and the kitten smacks his lips and tongue together, a strangely human-like movement. He hopes one day soon that he won’t have to use the syringe to feed him.

Safely alone in his office, Yongguk boops Kit’s nose. The paralegal was right. Kit is very cute.

.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next couple of days, Kit grows stronger, opens his eyes, and proceeds to get into everything around the house. He still prefers to sleep in the shoebox. The full moon passes without incident save for Himchan getting a little feisty with Jongup for eating some food he’d been saving for himself in the fridge. Yongguk goes to work, Himchan writes his thesis in a local coffee shop, and the others go to school. In the evenings, they gather around for dinner, find Kit in the cabinets behind the spices or in the laundry hamper, and they all eat together.

Yongguk would never admit it out loud, but he’s got a soft spot for the kitten that’s only growing larger and larger. It’s adorable how he mewls and sits at your feet for attention, or burrows into your shirts for warmth, or whines and cries when his food bowl is empty. Junhong is very good about filling it, but lately he hasn’t needed to, since Yongguk will usually get there first.

“You love this cat,” Himchan tells him with a small smile when they’re spending a rare evening alone in the house, as Youngjae offered to take the younger betas out for a movie and dinner. The couch they are sitting on is large and warm. Himchan, leaning against one of the arms, has his feet tucked up underneath him and he’s watching Yongguk and not the drama that he picked out.

“I’ve gotten pretty attached to him,” Yongguk admits, and that’s as far as he’s willing to go. Kit is curled up in a soft fluffy ball on Yongguk’s chest, dozing. He’d been playing with the strings of Yongguk’s hoodie earlier, and must have tired himself out.

“ _I’ve gotten pretty attached to him,_ ” Himchan mocks, imitating his low timbre of a voice. He kicks out with his feet and nudges Yongguk’s thigh, and Yongguk slides his eyes over to look at him. “We can all see that. It’s okay to, like, admit that you care. About stuff. About stuff you love.”

There’s color high on Himchan’s cheeks. Yongguk narrows his eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Himchan says quickly. “You don’t have to be so strong and serious all the time. Nothing.”

“Everything I do,” Yongguk begins, feeling the wolf rumble in his chest, “is for the good of the pack. All my rules, everything. It’s for your protection--”

“We don’t need your protection all the time, Yongguk,” Himchan interrupts, and Yongguk growls before he can help it, feeling challenged. Himchan pulls his feet back but does not blink or turn his gaze away. On his chest, Kit wakes with a frightened squeak, quickly dashing down Yongguk’s body on wobbly legs and finding cover under the couch.

“Sorry,” Yongguk concedes, feeling guilty. Carefully, he slides off the couch to peer underneath it, cheek nearly presed to the carpet. Kit’s huge eyes peer out at him, the kitten shaken by the disagreement. “C’mon. Come out, Kit. I’m sorry.”

Himchan sighs. “I’m saying, we didn’t all come together just because you could protect us. We’re a family, you know?”

“Yes, and I’m your alpha,” Yongguk says, succeeding in luring Kit out from under the couch, but the kitten runs instead to Himchan, climbing up to settle on Himchan’s thighs. Yongguk scowls.

“There, there,” Himchan coos, petting him. “Did the big mean alpha scare you?”

“Mew,” Kit squeaks, as if to say yes.

As Yongguk settles on the couch again to resume watching the drama, Himchan says, “Don’t worry; he’s not really that scary. Sometimes he’s just a big idiot.”

.

As things start to settle back down into routine, only slightly shifted with the addition of their kitten, Yongguk starts to notice the state of their house improving. It pleases him in a very small but important way, putting a spring into his step, to know that his betas are finally taking on more responsibility not only with Kit, but with their chores around the house. This is their home, after all.

The counters in the kitchen are always spotless when he returns from work, the laundry folded in piles, the living room free of clutter. Occasionally he will find one of Junhong’s hoodies bundled up somewhere he wouldn’t expect -- on top of a bookcase or under the kitchen table or, once, in Yongguk’s own bed -- but he doesn’t think much of it. If Junhong is cleaning up the rest of the house, what’s a hoodie here or there?

Everything is as it should be: the house in order and his betas in line, safe and secure. Then Kit will knock the pepper shaker from the counter onto the floor, making Youngjae erupt into a sneezing fit from the cloud of spice that billows up from the spill.

One thing he never imagined he’d be experiencing as an alpha when he roped in first Himchan and then Jongup, though, is walking into his home to find all of his betas on their knees or bellies in the living room, spread out all over the floor, dangling string in front of a kitten and watching him play.

“Hey,” Himchan says, noticing him first from the floor. “How was work?”

Yongguk sheds his coat and shoes and briefcase and says, “Tiring.” He heads to the kitchen, keeping his face neutral as he passes his bubbly pack in the living room. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Youngjae let go of the string, and immediately Kit tangles his paws up in it, freezing and rolling over onto his back when he realizes the predicament in which he’s found himself. The corner of Yongguk’s mouth tilts up. “What’s for dinner?”

“Beef stew!” Junhong calls from the room over. “I, uh, made it!”

The slight hesitation gives Yongguk pause, but the stew smells delicious, so he lets it pass.

.

This time when Yongguk takes Kit to the vet, the kitten is sitting neatly in the passenger seat, looking out the window of the car as though to take in the passing road signs and buildings. When they reach Hyosung’s, Kit claws up Yongguk’s forearms when he tries to put him into the little carrier bag Yongguk bought for him. The scratches heal quickly, disappearing as Yongguk watches, and he clucks his tongue at Kit and opts to hold him against his chest, instead.

Hyosung deems Kit healthy and on the road to full recovery, going so far as to comment on Kit’s faster-than-average healing.

“Reminds me…” Hyosung begins mysteriously, tapping her chin for effect.

“What?” Yongguk asks, scooping Kit up, examination over, to hold against his chest again.

“Never mind,” Hyosung says. “You should still feed him the formula once a day over the next two weeks, and then bring him back in for a sort of final check up, okay?”

Yongguk agrees, trying not to read too much into Hyosung’s words. From the vet’s clinic, he drives to the law firm’s offices and brings Kit inside, sidestepping the co-workers who reach out with hands intending to pet. He places him on the floor of his office and closes his door.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” Yongguk commands, wagging a finger at the kitten, who sits obediently at Yongguk’s feet for the first part of the day, napping. When it’s lunch time, the kitten gets curious, and whines until Yongguk obligingly scoops him up so he can explore the surface of his desk. “There, you baby,” Yongguk huffs.

Kit bumps his nose against Yongguk’s hand and then rubs his head into his palm and mews, pleased.

.

Very rarely will Yongguk leave work early if he’s finished with everything, because in the realm of the law, hardly anything is ever really _finished_ , but this past week his team have been working on a tough case, pulling extra long days, so he wraps up writing a few emails and recommendations and packs up to go home right after lunch. He’s accessible by email, anyway, so if anything urgent comes up, the firm knows how to reach him.

The drive back is smooth and almost without traffic; it puts him in an easy, relaxed mood as he parks and enters his home, but the moment he steps inside the little hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention, like he’s stepped into a field of static.

 _Intruder_ , his senses scream.

He moves forward cautiously, slow around the corners as the static feeling grows stronger, and his wolf rumbles around in his chest, primal about a threat in his territory. But as he draws closer to the source of this feeling, he realizes there is something familiar about it, too.

In the living room, there is a boy sleeping on his couch. Not one of his boys. He’s wearing one of Junhong’s black hoodies, and the item of clothing swallows his small frame. The hood is pulled up around auburn, tawny hair. As Yongguk watches, half of him stunned at how a boy could break into his home and the other half refusing to believe what he sees in front of him, the boy’s nose twitches in his sleep. He brings his hand up to rub at it, and then his eyelids are fluttering open. “Jun--” he starts, in a rich, bright voice, before his eyes lock on and register Yongguk.

His eyes are huge. Yongguk watches them gleam as he processes being caught, the bob of his throat when he swallows.

“Alpha,” he squeaks, and before Yongguk can say anything in return, the boy is gone, the hoodie folding in on itself like a balloon deflating.

From out of its folds, Kit emerges, trembling.

.


	4. Chapter 4

Yongguk sits in his idling car in front of his home, one hand wrapped tight around the steering wheel and the other hand’s fingers rubbing his own lips raw. He is wasting gas. He turns the engine off, a quick motion that leaves his keys jingling against each other. He's doing the right thing, isn’t he?

His pack comes first. He knows they’ll all be inside, now, back from their various responsibilities in this miraculously tranquil life they’ve managed to build up, wondering when he is coming home, wondering where Kit is.

The stray kitten Junhong had found that day in the storm, weak and barely hanging onto life, had been a boy all along. Like them, but not quite like them. A shapeshifter. Yongguk’s old pack had other names for his kind: mimic, metamorph, skinwalker. They were always killed when discovered. You couldn’t trust them.

But that was his old pack.

Daehyun was not like any of the shapeshifters he’d ever encountered. Flighty and submissive, when Yongguk told him to change back, Daehyun had simply done so, Kit morphing slowly into a boy again on his couch, shrugging on Junhong’s hoodie for decency. He sat with his heels tucked underneath his rear and folded his hands neatly on his thighs and sniffed, a small whine escaping his throat, just like how Kit would beg for attention.

“What’s your name,” Yongguk demanded, and Daehyun told him.

“Why are you here?” Yongguk stood before him, shoulders straight and feet slightly apart, arms crossed.

“J-Junhong brought me here, and then you all helped me get better. I didn’t want to leave -- it’s so nice, here. Junhong said it'd be s-safe. He promised, but I -- _please don't make me leave, Alpha_."

He addressed Yongguk like _Alpha_ was a military rank. It was clear he was frightened; his fingers were clasped so tightly together his knuckles were white, and he would not lift his eyes.

Yongguk felt something stir in the region of his heart, but he would not soften. Not yet.

"Did Junhong know what you were, when he brought you home the first night?"

Daehyun shook his head.

"Does anyone else know?"

It took a moment, but Daehyun shook his head again. He seemed unsure, shoulders hunched to make his figure even smaller. Yongguk felt his chest expand with warmth and sympathy for him, and he wondered how long Daehyun had been alone before Junhong came along.

"Is there anyone looking for you?" He let his voice drop down into a low rumble, careful.

Daehyun's breath hitched, and for the first time since being discovered, he lifted his eyes to meet the alpha's. Yongguk noticed how they were a warm honey brown, and when Daehyun blinked it was to blink back the sheen of tears that had formed in them. He opened his mouth but no sound came out, looking down again quickly as a couple of fat tears plopped onto his hands.

"I need to know," Yongguk said, choosing his next words wisely, "if you're going to stay."

Daehyun crumpled -- that was the only way Yongguk could describe it. His form splintered and folded and he held his face in his hands and shook, shifting like he was trying to disappear inside Junhong’s hoodie. “It’s been months,” Daehyun said between quiet sobs. “There’s no one looking anymore.”

“Family?” Yongguk asked next, but Daehyun refused to answer, and that was answer enough.

Yongguk has never been a very outwardly affectionate person. He kept his hands to himself and only offered praise when he felt it really necessary. He knows that it makes him seem cold and aloof, but the truth is he cares deeply for the important people in his life, and watching Daehyun try to control his crying on the couch made him realize quickly that Daehyun was going to be one of them.

He stepped forward, hands dropping, reaching out, but Daehyun already sensed him before he could connect and offer comfort. Instead, he found himself pulled forward when Daehyun latched his arms around Yongguk’s middle and pressed his face into Yongguk’s crisp white shirt.

“Please don’t kick me out,” Daehyun begged. “Please, Alpha. I’ve got nowhere to go. There’s no one -- I’ve got nowhere. I’ll do anything.”

His arms wound tighter and tighter around Yongguk, and Yongguk finally reciprocated by placing his hand over Daehyun’s head. He smoothed his thick hair and ran his fingers through it, and then he scratched behind his ear. Daehyun’s arms relaxed, and he turned his head into the light scratching; his eyes were closed and lips parted, just like how Kit would react.

This boy _was_ Kit, Yongguk reminded himself. He could see the kitten in him in the way he held himself, like he was still trying to shake those instincts and mannerisms off. The longer he pet him the firmer his resolve became. Kit, and as a result, _Daehyun_ , was theirs, and he would do whatever he needed to protect him, just as he would the rest of his pack.

Yongguk continued to pet him, and Daehyun continued to melt, until Yongguk could hear a purr rumbling from the back of his throat. “Shh, I’m not kicking you out. You’re not going anywhere.”

“ _Alpha_ ,” Daehyun said breathlessly, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.

“Call me Yongguk,” Yongguk said. “Or hyung. Just like everyone else.”

.

“Are you ready to go in?”

Yongguk turns to look at Daehyun in the passenger seat. Daehyun is hugging his bags of newly-bought clothes like they are precious, and perhaps they are. When Yongguk asked, he discovered that Daehyun had nothing in the way of material possessions, not anymore. He was beyond lucky that Junhong had found him when he did.

Daehyun curves over his bags, sighing, and Yongguk automatically reaches out to run his hand gently over the back of his neck. "What if they don't like me?" the shapeshifter asks, muffled by the clothing.

To go out, he'd worn a pair of Youngjae's jeans that needed to be cinched at the waist by a belt and Junhong's hoodie, looking like a kid trying on his older brother's clothes. Even after they'd bought a few items of clothing that actually fit, Daehyun hadn't wanted to change out of the borrowed outfit.

“They already like you,” Yongguk reassures him, smoothing his fingers through his hair.

“They like _Kit_ ,” Daehyun whispers. “Weres and shifters don’t mix. What if--”

“They’ll like you,” Yongguk says firmly. “It’s going to be fine.”

Yongguk gets out of the car first. He waits patiently by the passenger side door as Daehyun stares ahead, building up courage in his small frame to face the whole pack as a human for the first time. After a silent count to twenty in his head, the door finally clicks open, and Daehyun steps out without a sound.

“It’s going to be fine,” Yongguk says again. He blinks in surprise when Daehyun darts forward to catch his hand in a strong grip, nervous, but does not pull away.

“Thank you, Alph -- I mean -- hyung. Thank you, hyung.”

Daehyun smiles up at Yongguk, sweet and genuine, his eyes forming dark crescents as his cheeks bunch up to imitate Kit’s whiskers. Yongguk finds heat flaring up in his own cheeks, but quickly tamps it down, clearing his throat as they reach the front door.

“Really,” Yongguk says in an attempt to keep things light, “you were already a part of this family.”

He opens the door, and they step inside together.

.

**Author's Note:**

> [Because this prompt is very cute and annoying <3.](http://bangyoungdae.tumblr.com/post/98270383940/au-where-wolf-pack-b-a-p-adopts-a-stray-kitten)
> 
>  
> 
> [writing](andnowforyaya.tumblr.com) || [twitter](https://twitter.com/andnowforyaya)


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